Embodiments of the invention generally relate to laser devices including, for example, laser systems, laser bars and laser modules comprising laser diodes, and methods of using the laser devices.
Lasers have been increasingly adopted as medical surgical tools and optical fibers have been normally used as delivery devices. As compared to traditional surgical tools, laser surgery can reduce bleeding, pain and infection. Additionally, patients often have less hospitalization time after laser surgery.
High power and high brightness fiber-coupled diode lasers have been increasingly adopted in industrial and medical applications because of their intrinsically simple design, low cost and high wall plug efficiency. Laser diode bars, which comprise multiple laser diodes, have been the common building blocks for the high power laser systems. However, for some wavelength ranges, laser diode bars are not available. Thus, it is necessary to utilize only single semiconductor laser diode emitters or semiconductor lasers (hereinafter “laser diodes”) for these wavelength ranges.
Due to their low power, it is necessary to combine the output laser energy from multiple laser diodes into an optical fiber to provide the desired power level. However, it can be difficult to combine the laser energy from individual laser diodes into a single composite beam, particularly when it is desired to have a high power composite laser energy beam (e.g., more than 100 W) using low power (e.g., 1-3 W) laser diodes.
Different surgical applications often utilize laser energy having different properties. For example, different surgical applications may require laser energy having different wavelengths, different pulse widths and pulse repetition rates, different beam sizes and shapes, different power intensities and different feedback systems.
Embodiments of the invention provide solutions to these and other problems.